The Rory McIlroy Story

In 2012, Rory McIlroy was on his way to becoming the most exciting, and most successful, golfer on the planet. At the same time, his management team were also in the process of building his personal brand and creating a genuinely compelling sponsorship property to rival any in the world.

Atomic Sport’s remit started with developing Rory’s personal brand, creating owned imagery, a brand identity and an online presence that presented him in a way that reflected who he is both on and off the course. Following on from that initial task, we worked with Rory and his team on plans to grow his following and position him to secure truly huge commercial partnerships.

Working with a personality like Rory is a unique type of challenge. It was important to remember that he isn’t a commercial entity, rather he is a young guy who is trying to succeed at his chosen vocation.

Spending time with him on and off the course allowed us to understand his motivations and his personality, which we ultimately used to create his brand and online presence.

“The work we’ve done with Atomic Sport on building the brand identities of our professional sports clients has played a significant role in delivering highly successful global brand partnership programmes for our clients and their sponsors alike.”

Conor Ridge, Founder, Horizon Sports

Since our work with Rory, he has gone on to enjoy success after success, on the golf course and off it. The endorsement deal secured with Nike remains the largest in golfing history and the Rory Foundation, a brand we also created for Rory, has continued to go from strength to strength.

If you are working with high profile sporting talent and considering how you build their brand and their commercial appeal, talk to Patrick, Stephen or Trevor to learn about our approach.